Author: ISAAC Amoah, Jackie Austin, Charlotte Block, Kaylee Brilz, Dylan Bui, Andrew E. Ekpenyong, Jayce Hughes, Natasha Ratnapradipa, Sara Strom, Jacob Woolf 👨🔬
Affiliation: Creighton University 🌍
Purpose: Cancers of the brain and nervous system account for 1 in 100 cancer diagnoses in the US every year. Surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy constitute the standard of care. For Glioblastoma (GBM), the most aggressive primary brain tumor, the prognosis for patients remains very poor with the median survival time of only 8 months if nothing is done, and 12 - 15 months if the standard of care is carried out. Hence, there is acute need for new therapeutic modalities. Here, we present a cloud-based nanoparticle-mediated chemo- and radiotherapy platform to help prognosticate the course of combination treatment strategies against brain cancers, such as GBM.
Methods: We use a cloud-based, real time live cell imager (Axion, Omni) and an electric cell impedance device to measure cell proliferation/migration in addition to clonogenic assays, following chemotherapy with temozolomide (TMZ) and radiotherapy (using a cell irradiator), combined with nanoparticles, precisely graphene quantum dots (GQD).
Results:
Clonogenic assays show statistically significant (p < 0.0001) increase in cell death with radiation, but no statistically significant changes in survival fraction when either GQD, TMZ, or both are added. Surprisingly, we found significant reduction (p < 0.0001) in proliferation/migration, with GQD and TMZ, suggesting new therapeutic targets that may reduce local invasion and reoccurrence.
Conclusion: These results provide impetus for cloud-based assays using patient samples, to determine the best course of treatment for GBM, following surgical resection. Our cloud-based platform aims at providing cellular and molecular level insights for evaluation of efficacy or otherwise of combination therapies against brain cancers, especially GBM.